Tag: bucky barnes

inwhichiamasupervillain:

Let’s remember that Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers was the kid who befriended a small sickly boy looked down on and picked on by everyone else without caring what anyone thought.

Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers was a smart, bright, likable young man who enjoyed going to dance halls and science fairs.

Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers earned the respect, friendship, and loyalty of his soldiers to such an extent that when a stranger in spangly tights saves their lives only to ask them to follow him back into the fray, they agree because this guy’s nuts but he’s got Sarge’s seal of approval.

Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers withstood years of unimaginable physical and psychological torture until his captors were finally forced to strip him of his memories and all sense of self in order to make him compliant, and even then had to phrase his missions as fights for the good of the world.

And then, Bucky Barnes, with no knowledge of Steve Rogers or himself, with no agency or moral compass, couldn’t be kept out of cryostasis for too long lest he regain the smallest sense of self and turn on his masters. Because even they knew that James Buchanan Barnes was the furthest thing from a bully, and feared the vengeance he would bring down on them if he realized what they were forcing him to do.

And this is just Bucky Barnes in the MCU, who’s had maybe a half hour of screen time and a handful of lines.

Yeah, the seeds of the Winter Soldier are in Bucky, insomuch as he is competent, loyal, fierce, a brilliant tactician, capable of doing the dirty work to save others the burden, and a bit ruthless when it comes to protecting innocents and those he loves. But isn’t it telling that even stripped of everything but these attributes and then turned to destruction and chaos he becomes, not a bully, but an asset of terrifying efficiency? The Winter Soldier is single-minded and brutal in carrying out his missions, but he is an effective soldier, not a bully.

James Buchanan Barnes is a hero, and nothing, not the absence of one man (even a man like Steve Rogers) or anything else, could change that.

imaginebucky:

so often, it’s hard for him to say things out loud, so he writes them down instead. occasionally he will show specific entries in his journal to steve or sam to help them understand, but most of it he keeps to himself.

at first, he writes observations of the world around him. the kinds of things he would notice as an operative – maybe an interesting or suspicious person he saw out the window, or describing the building across from steve’s, or mapping emergency exits. he tries to be as descriptive as possible.

eventually, the entries get more personal, shifting from clinical descriptions to descriptions of the world through his eyes. he writes about things he likes and things he doesn’t like, or things he’d like to try, or what he thought about something that happened that day. sometimes the entries are very emotional and hard to write, and sometimes he writes about the joke sam told while they were making dinner.

he writes a few poems – just simple freeform ones – and he doesn’t show those to anyone.

the day he starts jotting down notes for a short story, planning a plot and dreaming up characters, he’s so proud of himself he can barely contain it.